The Gold Coast Pest Services Blog

What can you do to get rid of ants?

As with all pest control problems, prevention is better than cure. So rather than battling to get rid of ants, there are a few tips to stop ants becoming a problem in the first place…

Don't leave pet food out

Clear away sources of food

Store food in sealed containers

Clean away food and dirty dishes after meals

Clear up any spilled food

Regularly clean cooker and under appliances

Don’t leave pet food out

Put rubbish into sealed containers

Make your home perimeter less attractive to ants (works for termites too!)

Garden beds next to the home make it easy for ants (and termites!) to enter your house

Remove or trim back garden beds immediately around the perimeter of your home

Avoid watering garden beds adjacent to the building

Stop them coming in (we know this can be difficult)

Fill or block all potential cracks and crevices in brick mortar and gaps around doors and window

Don’t fill in or block weepholes or vents. Consider using a pest guard in weepholes

Why don’t consumer ant control products work very well?

One of the reason we get so many calls to solve ant problems is that most consumer ant control products just aren’t very good! Many of the sprays will kill ants, but they don’t kill the nest…. and that’s the problem. To get lasting ant control you need to destroy the whole colony and that means you need to kill the queen ant. Even if you kill most of the foraging ants, if the queen survives she continues laying eggs – the nest recovers and the problem returns.

To get lasting ant control you need to use a combination of products; typically a combination of ant baits and special non-repellent sprays, products which are only available to professional pest control operators.

Ant baits are the key to success. Baits consist of food attractive to ants and a slow acting insecticide. Foraging ants take the bait back to the nest where is it fed to the nest mates, larvae (young ants) and the queen. The insecticide is spread throughout the colony before it starts to have an effect. By the time the ants realise there is a problem, it’s too late and the colony is doomed.

The challenge with baiting is that different ant species have different food preferences, meaning different baits are needed for different ant species. To choose the best bait for the species of ant causing the problem, it requires the correct identification of the ant species, which can be difficult for homeowners. In addition, the range of ant baits available in the supermarket or hardware store is very limited, making it even harder to match an attractive bait to the ant causing the problem.

Even with the correct bait applied, some species of ants have multiple nests and multiple queens, all part of the same colony. As a result to get complete control is virtually impossible. In such cases baiting needs to be combined with a specialised ant spray treatment around the perimeter of the home to stop the ants entering the building. Supermarket sprays are good at killing ants when they are sprayed on the ants directly but are not very good at providing lasting protection when sprayed on surfaces.

The special non-repellent sprays available to professionals are long lasting and when sprayed on a surface cannot be detected by the ants. This is a good thing, as the ants then walk across the surface picking up the insecticide. These non-repellent sprays do not kill the ants immediately (again a good thing!), allowing the insecticide to be passed on to other ants in the nest magnifying its effect.

Success in ant control is the combination of knowledge (of ant behaviour, ant biology and food preferences) and the latest products – a combination which can only be provided by pest professionals specialising in ant control.

What can Gold Coast Pest Services do to get rid of ants?

Gold Coast Pest Services offer a range of specialist ant control treatments, generally using a combination of non-repellent sprays and baits. General ant problems can be dealt with during our general pest control treatment. However, if there is a particular ant problem or heavy ant infestation, we offer specialised treatments dealing with ant problems inside the home, ant problems outside the home and lawn ants (green ant treatments and funnel ant treatments).

All our ant control treatment come with warranties of between 6 and 12 months depending on the treatment and nature of the problem.

To find out more please check out our ant control page or give us a call 07 5574 8515